It was an excellent result in the Champions League for Celtic last night and a great performance which makes them favourites to join Manchester United in the knock-out stages. That would be a great achievement for them and their manager Gordon Strachan who has got them playing some really good football.
They’ve got to go away to Benfica and FC Copenhagen and play Manchester United at home and could get results in all those matches, while Man United can do them a favour by beating both Benfica and FC Copenhagen again so you’d have to fancy them to progress.
United, on the other hand, although they will progress and are top of the Premiership, haven’t been tested much this season. They’ve had an easy draw in the Champions League and they failed the only really difficult match they’ve had in the Premiership when Arsenal beat them 1-0 at Old Trafford.
Manchester United won’t be contending for the Champions League or the Premiership this season. They’ve done nothing to make me change my mind on that. They play Liverpool at home on Sunday in what will be the second serious test they’ve had this season and it is a huge match for both clubs, especially for Liverpool though.
Liverpool have had a bad time of it so far this season – they’ve lost three times already but I fancy them to get a good result at Old Trafford. I don’t fancy a United win and I think United are in decline despite the league table.
United are going to have to change their manager and I think they need to invest in some quality players who meet the standards of Manchester United. People like Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea, Michael Carrick - they’re not Manchester United players.
Looking to the Ireland set-up with the news that Bobby Robson has returned from illness to continue his role alongside Steve Staunton. I have a lot of sympathy with his health problems and I admire his courage in returning – weather it will be of material benefit to Ireland I have my doubts about that. He’s been ill and I wish him well but I don’t think it will make any difference to the overall fortunes of the Irish team.
Staunton has bought himself some time and the fact that we’ve two matches against San Marino, well we should be alright against them otherwise there’ll be big trouble (laughs). They conceded 20 goals in their first two matches so they won’t cause us problems.
Our next serious match is against Wales in Croke Park in March followed four days later by Slovakia, who look pretty useful, and those games will tell us a lot.
You ask is there a chance he will turn things around and become a success as Ireland manager? Well, there is a chance but the evidence isn’t there. The evidence is that he is out of his depth and he’s not ready for this kind of job. But the Czech performance bought him time.
He’s going to have two easy matches now and after that it becomes extremely hard again. Wales twice, Slovakia twice, the Czech Republic away, Germany at home.......I think his situation will be reviewed again but he’s got until next spring.
Eamon Dunphy was talking to RTÉ Publishing's Johnny Proby.
